The Phantom of the University
by Inspirelly
Summary: Christine Daaé is a dedicated university student - an admitted workaholic bent on graduating with honors. Her plan might be slightly complicated when the past comes back - literally. Turns out that university might not be all work, no excitement for this driven student after all.
1. Chapter 1

The moon was just a silver on the horizon and without the street lamps I would have been gliding along in a darkness only broken by the occasional pair of headlights. It was a weekend holiday with no school on Monday and everyone had left campus on Friday to go camping or get out of town. My best friend had left for Vegas which meant I was on my own – again.

Not that I was complaining. I had two exams on Tuesday so I was perfectly fine with spending another one of my precious weekends – in the prime of my life – scouring notes in the library. And that's precisely what I had been doing just a short time earlier. The library was full of people in parkas sipping at hot coffee with their laptops in front of them. I had managed to nab my favorite seat overlooking the front of the library and my prime piece of real estate managed to elicite several envious stares from passerby.

"Not again, Chrissy," my best friend Megan had said with a sigh when I told her. She looked like she wanted to tear her platinum blond hair out – doubtful since she'd just paid a fortune to dye her roots. "But I'm offering you a free room. You have to get out of here. It's not healthy."

I just shrugged, sunk lower behind my chemistry textbook. "It's a sorority thing anyway, isn't it? Kappa kappa gamma gamma whatsit whosit…"

"Just don't forget to let loose sometimes, Chrissy," she said, getting up and shrugging on her coat.

"I let loose all the time. Look at me, I've got my drink sitting next to this library book. Do you know how crazy that is? One careless move and my drink could spill all over the pages and then the librarians would all run up here with their ninja stars and take me out and then…"

Her hand reached out in a flash and turned my cup around.

"Chrissy! I thought we said no more double shots of expresso! You don't handle the caffeine well."

"I handle it well enough to ace all my organic chemistry quizzes," I grumbled but she just smiled, her glossy pink lips turning upward in a sad sort of way.

"Goodnight, Chris. Don't stay up too late. See ya next week."

"Have fun in Vegas," I called over my shoulder and she waved in reply, her Prada outfit vanishing behind the elevators.

Studying Calculus turned into a herculean effort after that conversation; I found myself doodling cosine waves in my notebook instead of finding the derivative of some moving object's speed like my math TA was expecting me to for homework. Finally, I just fought my thick, curly hair back into a precarious bun that I figured would lose about a curl a minute because that's my hair – stubborn and unmanageable – before slipping my laptop away and heading towards the elevators myself.

I was stiff, my ankle boots killing my feet after a day of walking around campus, and all I wanted was a bagel for dinner and a quick shower maybe. Onion and chive on the bagel, or maybe lox… It wasn't until I was walking out the door of the library that I realized I'd left my coat on the back of the chair where I'd been sitting.

With a curse that sent the eyebrows racing up on a nearby librarian, I attacked the stairs, arriving on the third floor in severe foot pain and a general state of irritation. The library was still busy, even at eleven at night, and I wove through tables with study groups pouring over open books. When I got to the table overlooking the window with a view of the grassy mall, my coat was gone – snatched, stolen, purloined.

I texted Megan.

 _Someone absconded with my coat._

My phone dinged instantly.

 _How do you know these words? And how did that happen?_

 _I forgot it on the back of the chair and it's too cold to leave without a coat…_

 _OMG, Chris. You forgot those headphones last week and they got stolen too._

 _Caffeine is the common denominator. I was drinking it in obscene amounts when I lost the headphones._

 _Take the elevator to the fifth floor. Ask for Louise. You be fine_

I tried asking her what she meant by it – and who the heck is Louise – but apparently our conversation was over because my phone was silent after that. Grumbling like the grouchy person college had turned me into, I squeezed into the elevator with a gaggle of frat boys. They hooted when I stepped off on the fifth floor and tossed me a flyer.

"Party next Friday at our house!" one of the pleasanter ones said. He smiled, honey-colored hair framing his face, and I felt my heart respond with a small flutter. Or maybe it was the caffeine wreaking havoc on my vitals.

The door closed again and I walked down a long row of books and periodicals, the invitation already pushed deep down in the pocket of my pants – like I'd ever have time for a party.

Fighting back an unfamiliar feeling of longing for something besides homework, I glanced around my new surroundings. I'd never been on the fifth floor before. I couldn't hear any hushed whispers here, no rustling pages – nothing. The lights up here seemed dimmer and the only book carts around were abandoned without a librarian in sight. My feet didn't even make much of a sound on the carpeted floor so I startled pretty badly when a finger poked me directly in the shoulder.

"Do you need help?"

Part of me was disappointed to see a tiny woman behind me, pink knitwear pulled unthreateningly around non-existent shoulders and secured with a pearl brooch. She looked like the grandma on the cookie packets they sell at the student union.

And I thought my life was starting to get exciting too.

"Are you Louise?"

"Yes, yes – do you need help?"

"I lost my coat and –"

"Say no more," she said, grabbing one of the abandoned book carts. "Just follow me. I run the lost-and-found up here."

I wasn't even aware the library had a lost-and-found which was odd since I generally knew where all the lost-and-founds were around campus.

For being advanced in years, Louise kept a killer pace – I chased after her and her cart as we made our way down an increasingly twisty path through the shelves. We came out into a small open area like a meadow in a forest of books. There was a tiny desk built into the wall here with the words LOST AND FOUND painted above it in block letters. Louise sent the cart flying into the far wall where there were at least ten others parked and scrambled behind the desk where she smoothed her fluffy hairdo back and gave me a distant smile.

"Lost and found, how may we help you?"

Danger, danger, said a tiny voice in my head and I was starting to agree.

"Ummm. Like I said earlier – I lost my coat…."

"What color?" she said without skipping a beat.

"White. It's a long wool coat with gold buttons on the cuffs here and here," I touched my wrists and she nodded briskly, already digging through the bins behind the desk.

"Keys, lanyards, backpacks, water bottles." She paused. "One of the first ever smart phones – how long _have_ we been in business?" She tossed the object back in with a bang and went at it again until I could hear her scrounging through clothing. "Tsk, tsk – no white coats, I'm afraid. But don't worry, dear. I'm not sending you out in just that flimsy turtleneck. Let me dig through the _we've given up all hope_ bin." Three seconds later she pulled a long black trench coat out that was at least three sizes too big – and I think it was a man's coat. "You can take this, my dear. Keep it – the original owner is long gone."

Thanking her, I pulled my mahogany curls back from my face (the curls had already escaped their bun) and slipped into the coat with a little help. The thing was so massively large it completely engulfed me once it was on, a clean cedar scent filling my nostrils as the black wool settled on me.

"Rosin," I whispered to myself, lightly sniffing the arm of the coat. "It smells like rosin dust. This is the coat of a violinist."

"Just take the elevator on your right, dear," Louise said with a rosy-cheeked smile as she gently led me away from the desk.

We ended up in front of an elevator I never even knew was there. I thought there were only the two that went up from in front of the main desk. The doors slid open as soon as I pressed the button and as I walked inside, Louise gave me a little wave.

"And remember, dear, that coat is yours – and so is anything you find in the pockets."

* * *

It was past midnight when I got out of the library. The moon was a still a sliver on the horizon and I sighed, trying not to trip in the over-sized coat. I missed my old coat – it was a gift from Father some long ago Christmas when we used to perform in the city square, him playing the violin and me singing, my lungs burning as I sucked in the freezing air. Thinking about him throwing an arm around my shoulder, trying to teach me how to slide the bow across the violin strings with the same elegance he had. Spinning me around and taking me to a pastry shop where we'd share a croissant with mugs of hot chocolate…

Jeez, after seven years you'd think you could get tough. I brushed a quick tear from my eye, my fingers moving towards the coat pockets. I'd rummage through them, hopefully find a tissue inside that had never been used.

My fingers hit something hard and small – a little booklet of some sort. I stopped under the orange glow of a street lamp outside the administration building – the halfway mark on my trip back to the dorm. A few people shuffled past, their breath hanging in the air and suddenly I was grateful for the warmth of the strange coat. It was a booklet inside the pocket, or maybe diary is a better word. The pages were yellow with age and the writing was in gorgeous calligraphy. The words inside were interrupted occasionally by music bars dotted with dancing notes, some hollow and others with little flags. The words were in a foreign language – French, I think.

Something stirred in my memory then – something from before. There were no words written to this music, but I began to sing the notes, my voice thin from disuse. To what would have been the pride of my third-grade music instructor Mr. Delaney, I managed to hit high A without much of a warm up. It was a short piece, but powerful. I savored the way it resonated deep within me, warming me from the inside out. The notes faded and I stood there, my thumb stroking the frayed edge of the paper before slipping the book away again.

It was an almost instantaneous change. The air suddenly felt colder and I shivered despite the thickness of the coat, a sudden gust of wind splaying my curls out across my face and blinding me momentarily. And that's when I knew there was someone behind me. I could sense him there, trailing not far behind.

I picked up my pace, cutting across the deserted lawn that stretched across the main half of the university. I cursed the fact that my pepper spray was somewhere else – in my old coat pocket, actually – and started to run, my breath lingering in the frigid air.

Someone had heard me singing.

I could sense him right behind me, an intimidatingly tall presence with smooth, even strides.

A sharp pain in my abdomen told me I wasn't going to be able to run much longer and I let out a startled scream as a hand grabbed me from behind and another covered my mouth.

"Christine," said a voice that sounded like liquid silver, like the color of the moon emptying out and spilling down to earth.

And I blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello everyone. I appreciated the kind reviews I received on my first chapter. This is my first fanfic so I'm flying by the seat of my pants a bit on this, but I have what I think are some fun ideas for the different directions this story might take in the future so please enjoy._

Chapter Two: An unexpected Guest

I woke up staring out across the grassy mall, my body propped against the trunk of a tree. A few snow flurries fell around me like dust and I shivered once, twice.

The presence was there, right beside me. I could barely catch the exhale of his breath he was so quiet and still.

I hardly dared to move and painstakingly I turned my head to regard the form crouching patiently beside me. My heart threatened to stop when I saw a pair of mismatched eyes studying my face, intense and unwavering. We regarded each other for a long few seconds before my fingers found a rather large stick beside me and I jumped up, holding it slightly over my shoulder like a cudgel.

"Okay, buddy! Back off!" I yelled, but I was dizzy and found myself leaning against the tree for support. My voice rang out through the clear, crisp night but the stranger hardly blinked.

His gaze never left me as he rose up, his gaunt form cloaked in black, his head easily rising above my own by a foot or more.

My face twitched slightly. "Look," I said, gulping, "I don't know who you are…." Those eyes – one the color blue of willow china, the other a brown not unlike my own dark curls – never left my face. Not once. "But unless you want me to report you to campus police, I suggest you take a hike and – "

"Christine."

There is was again. My name. And they way he said it, like he was spinning glass with his voice. It was like magic. I steeled myself against the pull of his voice and raised my stick a tad higher.

"I'm so sorry, Christine" he said in a half-whisper, and I finally got a glimpse of his face. The half bathed in the lights of far-off street lamp was solemn and pained, but the other half was concealed in a swath of porcelain white. "So sorry," he said again.

His tone cut me like glass, the pain evident in his voice affecting me as well and I screwed up my nose and my resolve against the strange feelings warring inside me.

I looked around, the campus utterly deserted. I took a step back as he took one forward, hands held up. "Christine, I …" he started and stopped, suddenly looking very confused. "Are you wearing fuzzy boots?"

I glanced down at my Ugg boots. "Uh, yeah," I said carelessly. "But how do you know my name?"

He started to say something and stopped, as if fully seeing me for the first time. Suddenly he started to really look around his surroundings, and I watched his eyes widen in fear and confusion.

"This isn't Paris…"

"Look, I don't know what's going with you, but I can direct you to some great resources here on campus if you are a student. Counselors and stuff like that."

"Wait, this makes no sense. You are speaking English!" he said, pointing an accusing finger at me.

"Yeah…" I let the stick fall a fraction of an inch.

"And where is your fiancée? He didn't abandon you, did he?" His voice faded to a growl.

"As much as I enjoy having a tête-à-tête in the middle of the night with a stranger in the darkest, creepiest part of campus, I think it is time for me to go."

And with that I let the stick drop entirely and finding my backpack a few short feet away, hauled it up, tossing it over my shoulder. I was a pretty good judge of character – I always knew the toads from the people worth giving the time of day to – and the person before me, strange as he was, wasn't a threat to me. Of that I was almost certain.

"Mademoiselle!" he called after me, but I kept walking – refused to look back. It wasn't until I felt his fingers brush my wrist again that I stopped.

"What do you want from me?" I snarled and he stared at me aghast. I didn't know it then, but it was about the worst thing I could have said to the man. I watched his eyes drop to the ground, his obsidian black hair shining in the dim light.

"I just…well." His eyes flicked up to meet mine. "You are wearing my coat, and it's rather cold out."

He was right about the weather part. It must have been about ten or twelve degrees out and the snow was starting to fall fast now. The coat part I was dubious about.

"Check the pockets if you don't believe me, mademoiselle. My composition book should be in one of them."

"Who are you?"

He looked askance. "Erik Destler. It's written in the front of the book."

So he was right about the coat part too, because I found his name written in curling letters on the front page of the book just like he said. Something else caught my eye just then as I flipped through the entries. One of the entries was dated from the 19th century.

I started to walk again and he followed as I hoped he would, ever the silent presence. I didn't stop until I reached the street corner just across from my dorm and we were both bathed under the light of a street lamp. His face was shrouded in the deep shadow cast by his fedora. He was wearing a thin silk cape that glittered faintly and his gloved hands hung limply at his sides as he waited for me to speak.

"What year is it?"

"Christine?"

I shuddered, thrown off every time by the way he said it. "The year, sir. What's the year?"

All I heard was 18-something or other. Something from the latter part of the 19th century. Someone here _had_ to be delusional – and I was fairly certain it wasn't me, but this man, this – shadow – had just materialized out of a cold, snowy night after I had found a booklet in the coat I got from some strange old lady on the top floor of the library. Maybe allowances for an impossibility had to be made.

The next thing I heard was an unearthly growl as Erik pulled me to one side, his cape thrown protectively around me.

"What the hell –" I gasped and he covered my mouth.

"It's a monster!" he whispered as a sleek sports car stopped at the crosswalk, music blaring.

I wrestled out of his grasp, tired of being man-handled. "It's a car you cretin!"

The driver saw me and started to yell. "Yo! Raoul! It's that babe from the library!"

The guy with nice face rolled down the back window, perfectly white, straight teeth glinting as he gave me a hesitant wave which I returned awkwardly while the rest of the guys in the car starting hooting. He really did have a nice face, I mused. It wasn't that he was just good-looking; I sensed substance behind the fair façade which was more than most frat boys could boast.

"Next Friday!" the driver yelled, peeling out, his crimson red taillights fading down the street.

They must not have seen Erik who seemed to melt into the shadows effortlessly. I sensed some serious grouchiness from that quarter as I turned back around and found him regarding me with crossed arms.

"Where were we?" I asked him, tugging him along with me by the arm before anymore chance meetings could make my life any stranger or more confusing. "Oh, yes. You were telling me the date. Well my tall dark friend," I said breathlessly, "hate to make things weirder then they already are, but the year is 2017 and you're not in France anymore."

I waited for him to object the entire time I slid my card through the security door and took the elevator to the fourth floor. I expected him to start laughing hysterically and call me a crazy person, but he didn't. Not when we walked down my hall or when we finally slipped into my room. I had already thought about it and decided he needed someplace to stay the night. This was completely absurd, but I trusted him based on more that just my generally spot-on character assessment – he seemed familiar somehow.

I flicked on the light and he looked up in surprise at the LED twinkle lights strung across the narrow space I called my own. I was an RA so I got my own room, but it was small and cramped; a perfect shoe-box of a place that still somehow managed to become a refuge for the bewildered, overwhelmed and lonely living among us in the hall.

Erik scrutinized an old anime poster while gradually letting himself down onto one of my chibli character beanbags.

"Reminds me of Persia," he said to himself more than me, already trying to poke his finger down my pencil sharpener.

This was going to be interesting.

"Gotta make a quick call," I said, hitting Megan's name in my contacts.

"Chris, my darling friend. My dear, dear, darling friend." Her voice was a tad too high and I could loud music in the background.

"I thought you had to catch an early flight to Vegas?" I said, pacing as much as I could in the tiny space and trying to ignore a curious set of mismatched eyes.

"Yeah, well, I thought I could just head from – hey! I paid for that drink, it's mine, not yours – sorry, Chris. Like I was saying, you have to make the most of every minute. Is everything okay? You sound stressed."

"There's a boy in my room," I said bluntly and I could have sworn I heard someone choking on the other end.

"Whoa! Um, right. Well, I'm glad you took my advice about letting loose. Is he cute?"

I turned around in time to see Erik open the microwave door, shut it, and push the release button so it popped open again. He kept doing it a couple more time before moving on to the stapler which he started cursing when it pinched his finger.

"Hard to tell, Meg. Hard to tell."

"He better be as smart as you or you'll get bored in five. I know you," she said in an obnoxiously accusing voice delivered in a tone that jumped about a bit too much for my taste. "And before you say anything, I already ordered a cab. Should be here any second to take me to a hotel by the airport. But before we part, what's the problem?"

"The problem is – " and I stopped. On second thought this was going to be hard to explain over the phone. I really just wanted to hear Megan's voice. Sometimes I hoped my friend's brashness in all matters would wear off on me. "No problem. Have a safe flight, bestie."

"Thank you dahling," and the line went dead.

"This is your room?" My unplanned for guest said in an odd voice. He seemed less intimidating and more human under fluorescents with the table of periodic elements hanging behind him and the stuffed tiger on my bed regarding him with its glass eyes.

"Yep, this is my room."

"But I can't stay here…."

"I know it's tight and small, but here." I sat down on the floor, already pulling stuff out from under the raised bed. "I have a sleeping bag under here for camping trips and there's a lot more space then you realize. So –"

"But I can't!" The poor guy seemed mortified. Then I remembered Victorians were a tight-laced bunch.

"But you must," I said, with a tight smile. "And if you're worried about social conventions, honestly we really have none left so this isn't breaking any rules. You're sleeping under my bed – by university standards that's pretty prudish."

Not saying anything, he glanced around the room somewhat fearfully, jumping when the heater kicked on. I felt a twinge of sympathy and wondered if he had left any kind of a family or friend in the past – maybe this other Christine he mistook me for….

"As you wish," he said at last, his voice a rasp as he vanished under my bed.

Gently, I took the composition book out of the coat pocket and placed it carefully at the edge of the bed. In a moment, a gloved hand tentatively retrieved it and with a long weary sigh borne from hours of studying, I turned off the light and climbed into bed fully clothed, my eyes stinging from weariness. I would figure out what to do with Mr. Destler in the morning.

Before I drifted off, I could have sworn I heard the faintest of music playing somewhere far off. My eyes stinging now for an entirely different reason, I dreamt of a violinist and his daughter preforming again for a contented audience.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** _Hey, everybody! This chapter is brief little interlude and I hope you like it. I have been updating pretty frequently of late because writing this is quite a lot of fun and in the near future it probably won't be updated nearly as frequently. And AliceHeart247, I just wanted to say thank you for your reviews – I really enjoyed reading your story Moonlight Serenade._

 _Enjoy and please review!_

 **Chapter Three:** ** _Looking Back_** **or** ** _Last Summer_**

I slept fitfully that night. My extra-long, twin bed felt cramped as a cracker box and my leg kept hitting the wall until I expected the girl next door to come beating on my door or post something snarky to the hall's group chat about the RA not respecting quiet hours.

My thoughts wouldn't let me rest. I kept thinking about that trip to Paris last summer and the music box. That damn music box.

"You look like a Daaé," my cousin sniffed when she opened the door to my grandmother's Paris apartment in the eighth arrondissement, a part of the fairytale-perfect neighborhoods of the Champs Elyses. There were women in chic, Audrey Hepburn style hats which bobbed as they walked down the street and people whizzed past on bikes, one of them with baguettes tucked into a basket on the front.

Cousin Estelle stood in stark contrast to it all; the daughter of Father's sister, she looked like her father's side of the family with her lanky hair and sour face. I tried to never focus too much on looks, but Cousin Estelle's personality failed to offer any redeeming qualities. "I didn't want to say anything," she said, opening the door wide enough for me to come in, "but I think you should know that I've become indispensable to Grandma. We're so close. Just don't be put out if she doesn't say very much – it's been so long since you were last here."

"The Martins are all alike," Father used to say. He meant that each one of them was an unpleasant reminder of their pillaging Nordic ancestors.

In the world of today, Mr. Martin was a banker who mostly pillaged bank accounts as an unscrupulous investor in London. His daughter Estelle was staying with our grandmother while she attended university in the heart of Paris seeking a business degree – undoubtedly to follow in her father's crooked footsteps.

I had only see her a couple times in my life and we stared at each other in the small front entry of the apartment like alley cats deciding whether or not to strike. Luckily, the voice of a delivery person from the back door drew Estelle away and I could finally get a better look around. The wood floors were polished and buffed until they reflected the small glass chandelier hanging off the white plaster ceiling. Setting my suitcase down, I let my fingers run across the gold-leafed wall moldings reminiscent of Louis the XIV. The sounds of motorbikes zooming past outside, the scent of baking bread from some patisserie down the road – it was all like Papa had said.

"I guess she'll want to see you."

Estelle's voice wrenched me from my reverie and I nodded, following her up the curling stairway to the second floor where the floor-length windows were all open to catch the cool spring air.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" she said, practically drooling as we passed a cute row of little, white framed windows. "Dad says it's worth more than our house in Chelsey. Can you believe that?"

We walked to the end of the hall, my cousin knocking once on the door.

"Come in," an airy voice called and Estelle gave me what I assumed was supposed to be a warning glance – like I was a toddler or something who needed to be reminded to mind their manners. The cow.

Grandmother was sitting on one of those old Victorian fainting couches, her thin body was wrapped in a cream colored dressing gown tied in the front with frilly sleeves that dipped and moved every time she set down another one of the old photographs she was going through. She smiled when she saw me, her almond eyes narrowing for a moment in effort to see better.

"Oh my," she said, waving me over. "You look so much like – "Seeing Estelle's expression she stopped. "Like your father, of course." She winced after she said it, turning her gaze back to the photographs.

I stood there awkwardly in the old drawing room, the windows on one side offering a view of the bustling streets and in the background, the Eiffel Tower. Old family portraits hung on the walls, most of them musicians, singers and the like. Music ran thick in our blood, like a vein of undiscovered gold until we mined for it, refined it. We had risen to prominence in the music world through the 20th century and now there were Daaés performing at music halls across the world, some of them professors and one who was a pop star in Norway. Grandmother herself had spent her days at Julliard before embarking on a career at the opera house here in Paris where the Daaé I had been named for, Christine, had once sung.

"If you want me to take Chris here out to Avenue Montaigne for some shopping, I totally can. I know you're probably tired." I glared at my cousin who shook me by the shoulder like I was a cumbersome bag of recyclables ready for the curb. "I didn't want to say anything, but _someone_ has to address this stuff."

"Estelle, dear," Grandmother said and I watched my cousin preen inwardly. "Would you run down to the market and get those guest soaps like you promised yesterday?"

Estelle deflated a fraction of an inch. "I mean, sure. Yeah, however I can be helpful"

Tossing me one last glance over her shoulder, Estelle left, her footsteps growing fainter until we heard the front door slam close with a disconcerting crash.

"Bull in a china shop, that one," Grandmother sighed, patting the seat next to her. Without saying anything, she enveloped me in one of her rose-water scented hugs, patting my back as a small sob escaped. "It's been so hard," she whispered, her cheek wet against mine. She drew back finally and stood up, moving like mist across the room in her dressing gown.

"He'd be so disappointed in me," I admitted but she just shrugged, pulling a key from her pocket and sitting down at an old writing desk facing the view of the Eiffel Tower.

"Sometimes the music leaves us," she said, turning the key and pulling the drawer out. "My voice lost its power after your father died last winter. I sang bars for sixty years, and now I can't even project across this room."

I watched her searching for something in the drawer as I tucked my feet under me, stroking the sapphire blue velvet of the fainting couch.

"How's your mother?" She said, still focused on finding something in the drawer. I made a noise in my throat and she glanced back with a sad smile of understanding. "Fiona's always been something of a free spirit."

"Yeah," I said, sprawling out and resting my head in my arms. "Too free to pay the bills." I couldn't remember how many nights I had to cook something in the microwave after school for the both of us because she was out all day with her fellow artists painting brick walls in deserted back lots. She was part of the reason I refused to attend college for a music degree – better to get something that could take care of financial matters in times of crisis. God knows we scraped by on what Papa earned as a violinist.

"I'm going to university out west," I said suddenly. "I hate that big ugly city now. It smells, and the rent's too expensive."

"Very sensible, dear."

"I'm going to get my degree in some scientific discipline. That way I can go to med school or do research."

"Very pragmatic of you."

I felt shaken as she pulled out a mysterious box and re-locking the desk drawer, came back and sat at the edge of the couch. I searched her face for the disapproval she must have for my shunning music, but her stormy grey eyes were on the box, a jewelry box, cherry-wood inlaid with silver.

"This was my grandmother's box, the same Christine you were named after," she said, running her hand across it. "You remember her story, oui?"

"She was a Swedish soprano," I said, playing with one of my curls, my body tucked close to Grandmother like I was a little girl again. "Her voice was said to be perfection."

"When she sang," my grandmother said with passion, "Paris stopped to listen. And you know Parisians, only quality interests us."

"Wasn't there a darker part to the story, though?" I said, trying to remember. "Something about her teacher…"

She nodded, brushed a piece of her salt-and-pepper hair behind one ear. " _Le Fantôme de l'Opéra."_

There was a sudden spring gust of wind that rattled the windows and made the curtains billow out around us. Grandmother hardly noticed, she was back to going through photographs.

"Here's the first Christine," she said, pulling out a spider-web veined black and white from the bottom of the stack.

The woman in the photo looked quite a lot like me – same round eyes and curly hair although hers was swept up under a hat.

"She vanished for years after the famous fire at the opera house. Everyone thought she had perished, but then almost a decade later after living God knows where, she marched back up the steps of the rebuilt opera house, sought out the managers who were the same ones from before, and demanded they respect the secret contract they had made for her which was to last fifteen years. An unprecedentedly long time for a contract concerning a singer in those times," she chuckled, "but as the rumors said, there was always something almost paranormal when it came to Christine and her singing endeavors."

"An opera ghost taught her," I said somewhat skeptically, still staring at my great, great-grandmother, trying to decipher the enigmatic expression in her eyes – like she was daydreaming.

"So they say, dear. I asked her about it once and she just laughed. Old age made her saucy and she just quirked her eyebrow at me and reminded me there was no such thing as ghosts, only people, and that those should be feared above all else." She grew thoughtful as she recalled it, pausing to glance at the vivid portrait of Christine hanging on the far wall with her curls loose around her shoulders and the same Mona Lisa smile on her lips.

"So what's in the box?" I questioned, sitting up so I could draw it on my lap.

"It's empty, but open it."

I did and there was a tiny, blond ballerina inside, her pointed foot glued to a spring so she popped up when the lid came off. She began to spin, small twinkling notes coming out. It played a strange melody I had never heard before. Beautiful, haunting, unsettling.

"I want you to take Christine's music box back to America," she said, once the ballerina had stopped spinning. "You are so much like her. That's what I was going to say when you came in. You have her beauty and her talent. You share similar temperaments and bear the same woes. Even the same name. I think she can teach you some things you are in dire need of at the moment – help you find your way, perhaps."

"Who did she end up marrying?" I said suddenly, hoping to break her off from voicing her plan to bring me back to music again.

"A Mr. Reynolds, I believe. He was something of a recluse, seldom seen in public. He died when I was very young. Stranger still, he insisted his children inherit their mother's maiden name, Daaé. An eccentric wish for that time…"

Just then the front door slammed shut with the same rattling force, the glass chandelier hanging above us tinkling with the impact.

"Subtle, isn't she?" I said, shutting the box tight and slipping it out of sight into my oversized purse. "I thought it was an invading army marching down the Rue de Triomphe."

I felt a hand on mine. "She's been a help to me. It gets lonely in this gilded cage of mine."

"I just wish I was the one staying here with you, attending a Parisian university. I couldn't possibly afford it though. Without your help I couldn't have flown here in the first place."

"And I would help you, dear, but most of the money goes to taxes to afford this, the gaudiest little gem set in the crown of Paris."

I laughed, talking breathlessly before Estelle could get up the stairs. "Maybe Cousin Estelle's dad could make some money disappear in the UK and reappear in your bank account. He seems to be good at stuff like that."

"We could use a butler again like in this old days," she said and in seconds we were laughing, sharing a conspiratorial look when Estelle burst in again.

"That bloody shopkeeper tried to rip me off," she cursed, letting her cloth shopping bag drop on the floor as she scrounged through her purse, "but I reminded him about that cricket we found in the bread he sold us last week and for the same price he threw in some goat's milk body creams and even a gâteau basque his wife just made," she said, lifting a pie pan out to show us. Her bleached eyebrows knit together as she watched us there together, undoubtedly suspecting something.

"Very good, Estelle," Grandmother said, surreptitiously slipping the photo of Christine in my purse in one smooth motion as she stood up. Why don't we go downstairs and you can show Chrissy your progress on the violin."

"Dad got me a Stradivarius," she said, throwing the shopping bag back over her shoulder as she followed us out.

"And it sounds like the angels in heaven," Grandmother said, shooting me a meaningful look.

Estelle clomped down the stairs, throwing her head back up towards us like a frisky Clydesdale. "Yeah, I didn't want to say anything – thought the music could speak well enough for itself – but it really is some bewitching stuff that comes out of the little fiddle. At least, when I play it."

I spent two weeks there with them before it was time to head back home, and when I said goodbye to Grandmother at the airport, somehow I knew it was for the last time. When she died two months later, I got a packet in the mail with all of her old photographs which I stuffed unceremoniously into the jewelry/music box. Up on my top closet shelf at university you can find it, the little ballerina buried under stacks of old lab reports, waiting for someone to open the lid so she can dance to her strange melody again.


	4. Chapter 4

p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I woke up the next morning to a series of panicked knocks on my door./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"But it's so early, my struggling brain complained as I peeled the sheets off and slid the whole five feet down off the bed. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Thank gawd," someone groaned as I regretfully stuck my head out the door./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"It was the midwestern girl, 709, the room by the bathroom. I was supposed to know girls in the hall by name and I did for the most part, but there were a few outliers who were either referred to as numbers by the various RAs or identifying nicknames. 709 was also the Nervous Tick, it just depended on who you talked to. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I was sleeping in my bed last night," 709 said, launching immediately into the details, "and I hear this voice… Shianne, you heard it right?" A timid-looking 709's roommate shrugged and slipped into the bathroom. "Anyway, I was asleep and then I heard this awful racket in the ventilation system. Like someone was crawling around up there! Sounded like a whole crapload of frats breaking in, except this particular crapload could sing something heavenly." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Voice like an angel. Who could that be?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I will inform maintenance immediately," I said in a blandly comforting voice, already shutting the door./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I'm not even complaining!" 709 persisted. "If it wants to come back tonight and sing in my ear that would be – "/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Her voice cut off as the door clicked and I turned back to peer under the bed. Something shifted slightly, a pair of mismatched eyes met mine before I heard a velvety voice. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Good morning, Mademoiselle. I trust you slept well?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Well enough," I grumbled, "but being woken up a whole two hours before my first class isn't what I would call ideal."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He slipped out from under the bed like a shadow, gradually straightening out as if the sun were sinking lower, drawing his murky form up and out. The tip of my nose barely brushed one of his slumped shoulders and I drew my arms across my sleeping t-shirt, trying to regain my space – and suddenly I felt cold. Even in the dim morning light that filtered through the drawn blinds, he looked like an apparition, a reedy thin wisp of smoke shrouded in pitch black cape that hung off a painfully thin form. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Heart pounding, I turned around to grab a banana and a parfait cup from my mini fridge. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Breakfast," I said, shoving the cold assortment into his skeletal hands. I quickly grabbed my gym bag in the corner, shoving my lab notebook into it. "I'm going to go workout and run to class now. I'm sure you can keep yourself busy until I get back around noon?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Why was I panicking? I felt suffocated, I needed out./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"He never moved, only his eyes followed me as I hung nervously by the door. What was wrong with me? Other than the fact I had let a complete stranger from off the street camp out on my room overnight…/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Were you out and about last night by any chance?" I said, trying not to picture the pom-pom-like state my curls were currently in. This was my room, dammit, and my hall too for that matter. People living around here answered to me and this… apparition, was no exception./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The willow-blue eye glittered like a jewel set in the white expanse of mask and his mouth curled ever so lightly – the most evil smirk you could imagine. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Just exploring my new abode."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"I managed to make a brisk nod, and with that my bare feet hit the crusty carpet outside and I found myself changing in the bathroom, desperately pulling a tank top over my sports bra along with some leggings and a pair of trendy sneakers. Meg was right, the caffeine was a drug to me, I must have been high to let that, that,em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" thing/em inside the dorm. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""O-chem lab," I whispered as I fled the hall altogether. I had lab in a few short hours. Maybe it would be gone by then./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"strongErik:/strong/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"People were screaming in the courtyard again for no discernable reason. I peered outside Christine's single, prison-cell of a window to see some girls wearing almost nothing at all and chasing their muscular friends, both of whom were sporting Greek letters on their shirts. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Apparently people in this time period would howl on the random – so much for long-practiced tricks to incite real terror. I could have left my lasso at home. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Everything about 2017 was distasteful: the people, the music, the dwellings (did no one know what cornices were anymore?). The only thing that was reasonably good was the, what did she call it? Parfait? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Tired of pacing the tiny room, I effortlessly pulled the air vent grate on the ceiling aside and leapt through. Within minutes I was standing on the roof watching a flustered Christine flee to the opposite street, bag in tow. My throat tightened as I watched her go. I hated watching her go – I had experienced quite a lot of that lately. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Stupid boy," I growled under my breath as the stale city air stirred my cape ever so slightly. It was that Vicomte's fault she had left in the first place. And apparently he existed in this time too. "Christine." The name slipped out entirely be accident, a fierce whisper that was immediately lost in the blare of traffic. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"What did she do all day, this 21supst/sup century Christine? A university student, that's what she was, but what was she studying? Music surely? The quality and tone of her speaking voice implied something achingly grand under the surface, the very same gift I had grown to adore at the opera house. Music clung to her whether she knew it or not and I wanted to draw it out again, to shape it and craft it. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I am your angel of music," I whispered./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"The retreating figure of Christine paused for a moment before slipping behind one of the numerous brick buildings sprawled out across the campus. a name="_GoBack"/a/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-indent: .5in; line-height: 200%;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" /span/p 


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